Theater

Productions

produced by WALLIS KNOT THEATER

Resident Playwright, Director, Designer: Eileen Connolly

Associate Artist / Choreographer: Sean Roschman

Movement / Company Actor: Connie Rotunda

Music / Company Actor: Annalisa Chamberlin

& Play Scripts

by Eileen Connolly

Daughter of the Waves

A true untold tale of survival and hope from WWII, when Jewish refugees were smuggled into Ireland by a traveling theatre troupe.

CHARACTERS: GENDER: 6 female, 6 male. RACE: mostly Irish, with possibility for casting 3 people of color

Between Two Worlds

Have a laugh, brush away a tear, and reaffirm your belief in Love in this old-Hollywood style comedy-romance with music, set during WWII.

CHARACTERS: GENDER: 3 female, 3 male, 1 nonbinary. RACE: 1 Hispanic (leading man role); possibility for casting 5 other people of color.

3 Blind Mice

A psychological spy drama-thriller. After 20 years, old friends from WWII gather to raise a glass to a fallen comrade. But no one is to be trusted.

CHARACTERS: 1 male, 2 female, + 1 nonbinary who appears only via audio or video projection. RACE: There is historic precedence for the two non-Irish characters to be black, so please consider that exciting choice.

Harvest

1969. A love story about damaged people trying to find their way home. In a world where a man can walk on the moon… isn’t anything possible?

CHARACTERS: GENDER: 2 male, 2 female. RACE: the leading man is C; all other roles are open to all ethnicities.

“…a sensual, artful feel to it.”

— OFF OFF ONLINE

“the entire company of actors are to be commended for their top-notch work.”

— Talkin’ Broadway

“...reinventing a classic, and in using the medium of theater to explore its visual, sonic, and kinetic possibilities, Connolly has hit on a novel approach.”

— NY Theatre.com

“Connolly’s handsome stage pictures seductively draw the audience into her world.”

— Backstage

Production History

2003  SEEING ANDRE GIDE (New Actors Workshop)

2004  DRACULA JOURNALS  (American Theater of Actors)

2005  DANCE WITH ME, HARKER (New York International Fringe Festival)

2006  LATE TO THE REPUBLIQUE (NY Conservatory)

2007  HAMLET (NY Conservatory)

2008  WET SHAKESPEARE - SPRING DANCE CONCERT (Hudson Guild)

2009  MEET THE AUTHOR Reading Series: Joseph Goodrich

2009  CLOSED OUT OF TOWN Reading Series: Ellery Queen

2009  PAPER - SPRING DANCE CONCERT (Hudson Guild)

2009  BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (Hudson Guild)

2009  MACBETH (Hudson Guild)

2010  DUCHESS OF MALFI (Connelly Theater)

2011  BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (HERE arts center, SoHo)

2013 NYU /Resident Artists with Roschman Dance

2014  DAUGHTER OF THE WAVES (Theatre for a New City, Summer Festival)

2015  DAUGHTER OF THE WAVES (New York Musical Theater Festival, Reading Series)

2017  HARVEST (workshop)

2021 STARS MAKE NO NOISE (Online Reading)

2022 THREE BLIND MICE (Online Reading)

*All plays written/directed by Eileen Connolly (except “Late to the Republique” written by Brook Stowe)

“Supercharged with bursts of kinetic energy and humor... a refreshing and innovative take on the classic work… certain to captivate.”

— Show Business Weekly

Company & Collaborators

Eileen Connolly

(Artistic Director. Resident Playwright / Director) holds an M.F.A. in Acting from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. in Theater & Dance from DeSales University. As a member of Actors Equity, Eileen performed regionally in everything from Shakespeare to Agatha Christie to understudying Charles Busch in a musical. Settling down in NYC, she co-founded the non-profit Wallis Knot Theater and wrote & directed all of their shows (see above). Eileen also had an ongoing gig singing country western music at Coyote Kate’s in NYC, painted a cow for the New York City Cow Parade (hers exhibited at Rockefeller Plaza), designed numerous book covers (Samuel French, Greenpoint Press, Perfect Crime Books), and exhibited oil paintings at the Currican in NYC as well as at the Brooklyn Waterfront Arts Coalition. Eileen has taught actors for over twenty years, at places such as: Mike Nichols and George Morrison’s New Actors Workshop, the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, and AMDA. She is currently teaching B.F.A. Acting at Ball State University.

Sean Roschman

(Artistic Associate/Choreographer) began his dance training in Chicago and went on to earn a BFA from New York University. Sean founded Roschman Dance in NYC in 2008, and after creating many evening length works and festival pieces, he moved to Chicago and founded a new performance company, Niko8, which premiered their first work in Chicago in Summer 2023. Their second season opens Fall 2024 at Ruth Page Center for the Arts in Chicago. Sean has received commissions from Cirque Du Soleil's onedrop.org, Lady Gaga's ARTRave, New York City Fashion Week, the Maritime Museum of Norwalk, HEREArts, New York University, the New York Conservatory of the Dramatic Arts, and Stuyvesent Town/Peter Cooper Village's Summer On The Oval Festival. His dance pieces have been performed at 2012 Downtown Dance Festival, The Elan Awards, WaxWorks, The Rover Soho, PS122, and many others. He choreographed the Off Broadway shows: "God Hates This Show," "Little House On The Ferry" and “Southern Baptist Sissies”, and contributed choreography to the international touring burlesque shows "The Pretty Things Peepshow" and “The House of Burlesque.” He co-created and choreographed Wallis Knot’s "Daughter Of The Waves" which premiered at Theater for The New City and was selected for the New York Musical Theater Festival reading series. He also choreographed Wallis Knot’s “Hamlet,” “Macbeth” and “Duchess of Malfi.” He is a Flying Choreographer for ZFX Flying Inc. working in regional theaters and on Broadway.

Connie Rotunda

(Artistic Associate/Actor and Movement) is an actor, director, movement coach/director and teaching-artist. She was the former Associate Chair of the Theatre Arts Department at SUNY New Paltz. She has worked regionally and Off-Broadway, created and performed sketch comedy with Alarm Dog Rep, as well as performed and taught as a guest artist. She has collaborated as an actor and movement director with Wallis Knot and as a rogue artist with The Anthropologists and Messenger Theatre, all independent experimental theatre companies based in NYC developing new works. As a Guild Certified Practitioner in the Feldenkrais Method® she has worked as a training program practitioner in the NYC Feldenkrais Method® Professional Training Programs. In addition to Feldenkrais, she has trained in the Viewpoints with Mary Overlie, Wendell Beavers, Anne Bogart, and The SITI Company; the Margolis Method with Kari Margolis; Middendorf breath work with Juerg Rofler; Linklater with Andrea Haring; Trish Arnold work with Merry Conway; and the Michael Chekhov Technique with MICHA faculty. In 2016 she was named the MICHA Inaugural Scholar for her research and investigation of the synergy between the Feldenkrais Method and Chekhov Technique. She maintains a private Feldenkrais practice in New Paltz.

Annalisa Chamberlin

(Artistic Associate/Actor and Musician) is an actor, director, singer and musician. She is a graduate of the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. As a member of Wallis Knot Theater, she played Ophelia in their avant garde remix of "Hamlet" (at NYCDA), and starred in roles written specifically for her, such as: Penny in "Harvest" (at NYCDA and as a short film), "Between Two Worlds" (at HERE Arts Center, NYC), and at the New York Musical Theatre Festival’s "Daughter of the Waves" for which she also contributed original music in addition to starring in the leading role of Cherrie. In 2022, she starred in and directed "Boann and the Well of Wisdom" at 1st Irish Festival. In 2023, and again in 2024, she appeared in Irish Arts Center's "Peace and Love in Brooklyn." Annalisa was recently featured in several episodes of NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

currently in development…

Smackerel Initiative:

Wallis Knot Theater is dedicated to creating new scripts for theatre and screen that focus on strong female characters & establishing an arts cooperative uniting Irish artists from the U.S. and Ireland.

The Stars Make No Noise 

by Eileen Connolly

New York City, 1863. In the early morning hours, the dead body of a young woman in a bi-racial marriage is found in a New York City alley. An Irish immigrant famous for her investigative skills is gathering clues, but…the city is too quiet. Where are all the people? Something is not right. In a few hours time, the Black Joke fire laddies, known for their vigor and violence, will begin a protest against the Civil War that will end in one of the bloodiest insurrections in American history. Determined to find the murderer, our female detective dons her snappy trousers & newsboy cap to head out into the fray, fighting her way through the mobs to find the truth. A truth much closer to home than she ever dared admit.

Girls Who Kill Nazis 

by Eileen Connolly

WWII. Europe. Our intrepid female photo-journalist, pals with the likes of Hemingway and Margaret Bourke-White, sprints through war-torn Europe in search of a news story that will launch her career while tossing back her fair share of cocktails and dodging a few bullets along the way. When she falls in with an unlikely group of school girls hellbent on assassinations, she must truly wake up and confront her fears and decide exactly how far she’s willing to go for the truth.

The research phase for this project is almost complete, and Smackerel is hard at work finishing up the scripts for this episodic series! Stay tuned for more news as it unfolds

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ACTOR PHOTO CREDITS from top down: (Red Coat) Dannie Flanagan**; (Daughter of the Waves) Connie Rotunda & Jay Goldenberg*; (Between Two Worlds) Dannie Flanagan**; (Harvest) Connie Rotunda*; (Gertrude with Umbrella) Connie Rotunda*; (Angels in White)* Sean Roachman, Andhy Mendez, Annalisa Chamberlin; (Ensemble in white)* (top row) Amy Bettina, Annalisa Chamberlin, Andhy Mendez, Bradley Rose, Joe Goodrich & (bottom row) Sophia Parra, Dannie Flanagan, Connie Rotunda; (Dancer) Sean Roschman*; (Red Ballet Shoes)* Dannie Flanagan, Andhy Mendez; (Production History, top down) David Del Rio; Andhy Mendez; Shelleen Kostabi; Annalisa Chamberlin; Stephane Forneau; Dannie Flanagan & Andhy Mendez; Zade O'Blenes; Stephanie Forneau, Gina Costigan, Nick Cianfrogna & Andhy Mendez. (Ophelia & Hamlet go ice skating) Annalisa Chamberlin, Quentin McQuiston; (Dressing Rooms)*(Left) Andhy Mendez, Sarah Carradine, Amy Bettina; (Center) Dannie Flanagan; (Right) Chad Ericson, Sophia Parra.
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS: * = Silvia Saponaro and ** = Doug Gorenstein

and many thanks to the artists of unsplash.com